Page 361 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

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Heckmondwike Boots and Leeds.
in regard to navvies' and quarrymen's boots this -would hardly hold
good to-day. Given a new start the works went on for some years,
increasing its trade and with fair profits, until 1904. By tliat time
the ever-lessening demand for heavy boots had resulted in an
intensified competition, and this strain upon the management proved
too heavy. There ensued a period during which the factory satisfied
neither its customers, nor its workers, nor the Committee, the total
losses reaching about £10,000. In November, 1907, the present
manager, ]\Ir. Haigh, took charge, and better results began to follow.
From less than £59.000 in 1906 the total of yearly suppUes grew
to £105,000 in 1912. A feature of this last revival has been the
cultivation of a trade for pit boots among the co-operative miners
of South Wales, while a working exhibit, showii^ the making of pit
boots, at the Xewcastle-on-T\Tie Co-operative Congress Exhibition
of 1909 attracted much attention.
The last addition to the C.W.S. Boot and Shoe Works dates
from 1912 only.^ In March of that year some 11,000 square yards of
freehold land were bought in Leeds, the position being a convenient
one upon the Meanwood Road, and the price £3,320. The Hght, new
factory erected on a part of this ground, with its " minimum of
brickwork" and "maximum of glass," is virtually an extension of
the Heckmondwike works. It is under the same management,
while being more conveniently placed than the parent factory for
obtaining the best workers in this branch of the industry. The
Wholesale Society has never lacked suggestions as to where to place
its works. At one time in 1911 the Committee had nineteen
proposed localities for boot factories before them—Northampton,
Norwich, and Bristol making serious claims ; but for some years any
such developments necessarily must remain in the air.
Before we take leave of the shoe factories one important detail
calls for notice. The question of new machinery and its effect upon
the C.W.S. workers has twined hke a more vivid thread in the plain
web of our narrative. This colour in the homespun follows to its end.
In 1911 the question became acute with the introduction of new
lasting machines at Leicester. Some forty workers were displaced
to use the easy, euphonious phra se—and loud protests were made
in the ]\Iidland to\^-n. A debate upon the discharges, punctuated
by cries of "Shame!" was heard at the Quarterly Meetings of
June, 1911. An unanswerable defence for the introduction of
'Excluding a small rented factory at Wellinerboro' opened in 1913 to brinp under
"
C.W.S. control certain outworkers engaged in " closing —a final step in this direction.
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